Klarinet Archive - Posting 000321.txt from 1999/05

From: "Edwin V. Lacy" <el2@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] Re: Writing in the wrong key
Date: Sun, 9 May 1999 23:31:02 -0400

On Sun, 9 May 1999, Gary Van Cott wrote:

> Dan Leeson wrote:
> THE CLARINET PART IS DELIBERATELY WRITTEN IN THE WRONG KEY.<<
>
> How common is it for composers to do this general? I have looked at
> the scores for some of Shostakovich's Ballet Suites and the clarinets
> are the only transposing instruments that are written in the correct
> key signature. Both the trumpets (Bb) and the horns (F) are written
> as if they were in the key of C with all the accidentals put in just
> as Dan described so they will play in the correct key.

This is an entirely different situation. That practice is a holdover from
the days when brass players used the natural (valveless) instruments.
They were expected to have crooks or slides which would put their
instruments in the tonic key, and then the key signatures would always be
written in the key of C. Some composers continued to do this through the
19th century, and obviously, according to your post, so did Shostakovich
in the 20th.

Ed Lacy
el2@-----.edu

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